


A Selkie's Laugh

by eirenical (chibi1723)



Category: The Secret of Roan Inish (1994)
Genre: Background Fiona Conneely/Tadhg Conneely, Brother-Sister Relationships, Children, Coping, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Loneliness, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Canon, Returning Home, Sad and Happy, Yuletide 2014, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 07:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2843435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/pseuds/eirenical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie was at the water, again.  Fiona could see him from the cottage.  Sometimes Jamie would run from her, when the sea rode him like this.  Sometimes he would let her approach, let her coax him inside where it was warm… human.  And, as always, whenever he had to make that choice, Fiona wondered which side of his heritage it cost him more to deny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Selkie's Laugh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thevina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thevina/gifts).



> **_December 24, 2014:_** I have always loved this movie, and always wondered what it would be like for Jamie to rejoin his family, rejoin humanity, after all those years apart. I'm so glad that you requested this story and gave me an excuse to write it! I hope you like it. ^_^
> 
>   _Side Note: Because the movie leaves it unclear, for the purposes of this fic, I'm going to assume a wide generation spread so that Tadhg isn't **that** much older than Fiona. Because I've always felt that there was a really strong connection between the two of them and wanted to explore that a little bit, too._

Jamie was at the water, again. Fiona could see him from the cottage that was now her own. Jamie… her own dark Conneely. He'd been so young when they'd lost him, was still so young when they'd gotten him back, but those years at sea had changed him, shaped him into someone who would never be quite at home on land. Fiona grieved for him, sometimes, when the wind whipped the sea into a frenzy and his dark eyes filled with longing, not for a person or a place, but for the life that was no longer his.

Wiping her hands free of flour, Fiona stepped outside, down to the shore. Sometimes Jamie would run from her, when the sea rode him like this. Sometimes he would let her approach, let her coax him inside where it was warm… human. And, as always, whenever he had to make that choice, Fiona wondered which side of his heritage it cost him more to deny.

This time, Jamie stayed. Fiona stepped up beside him and slipped her arm around his waist. He let out a gusty sigh and slowly dropped his own arm around her shoulders, tucking her into the curve of his body, protecting her from the wind. Looking up at the tall, broad-shouldered youth her little brother had become, Fiona couldn't help but feel a surge of maternal pride. He was a fine man, her Jamie. He would make someone a fine husband someday… if he could ever free himself from the grip of the sea.

Softly, Fiona said, "Jamie, the wind is picking up. There'll be a storm. Come inside." Jamie stilled in her embrace, dark eyes fixed on the swell of the waves. Moments later and he'd shaken her off, moved farther down the beach until the water came up over his bare feet and kissed his trousers. So, it was to be a run, today, after all.

Fiona didn't know where Jamie took shelter when the storms came, when the sea's pull was so strong that he couldn't return to the cottages. She'd tried to follow him once, tried to coax him in even after he'd run, but he'd simply run farther still. They'd not seen him for days after. That had been enough to teach her not to give chase. So, even though the rain had started to stream down from the skies, even though the wind had a biting chill in its breath, Fiona let him go. She had faith that he would return when he was ready.

…she had no choice.

* * *

Years later, Fiona was a married woman with children of her own. When she'd married Tadhg Conneely, there had been an uproar. Cousins through her father and with Tadhg near 8 years older, both her grandparents and her father had opposed the union. But she'd been drawn to Tadhg since she was a child, moved by the way he never talked down to her, how he instead spoke to her as an equal… sometimes even as though she were his better. He had a soft way about him, dark and quiet like her Jamie, and though the pair hardly spoke, having him about eased something in Jamie's spirit. That alone would have brought her to love him. But he was also kind and gentle, and encouraged her own small connection to the sea. He would never hold her back, would prefer to see her run barefoot and wild across the dunes than tie her down in any way. And she loved him for that, too.

By the time Fiona was 28, Tadhg had given her a family of five beautiful children, most as fair-haired as she… but there was one. When she'd first held her eldest girl in her arms, first met those beautiful eyes, already dark as the ocean depths, Fiona had known that the blood ran true. This girl was a dark one -- like Tadhg… like her Jamie. She called her Nuala.

Nuala was a restless soul, never content to be still. When three months had gone by with her still crying through the night, Jamie had been unable to stand it. He'd fled the cottage, disappeared for hours each day and keeping gone most nights. When he returned, there were more shadows in his eyes, he'd lost weight… and he held in his arms a cradle. A cradle with no need of rockers. A cradle which was more boat than cradle. The Selkie's cradle. Nuala's cradle.

From that day on, Jamie and Nuala were inseparable. He took her down to the shore every day that the sea was calm and floated her upon the waves. And in the arms of her grandmother, the Sea, and her Uncle Jamie, Nuala's restless spirit found peace. Fiona's grandmother worried sometimes, she knew, seeing the pair of them drifting so far out into the waves, but Jamie never got lost. He knew the currents of the sea around Roan Inish better than men who'd been sailing them for forty years, did Jamie. And he could predict her moods even better than their grandfather. Fiona trusted him with Nuala. And that was enough for Tadhg, even if it wasn't enough for Tess Conneely.

* * *

As the seasons turned and the years passed, little Nuala grew into a fine young girl. Sprightly and cheerful, she was an anomaly among the dark Conneely's. Though she made some uneasy with wisdom beyond her years, she was sweet, good-natured in a way that many of the dark ones weren't. Fiona thanked Roan Inish for that. Roan Inish… and her Jamie.

Jamie still had not married, though he'd caught the eye of many young woman in the town. He was still quiet, still kept to himself, exchanging hardly any words with anyone. He spoke to Fiona, sometimes, in his strange, ancient accent, but even those conversations were brief, stilted. He loved her, Fiona knew that, but he expressed that love in gestures, small gifts that he brought back from his time apart, in the care he showed her daughter. Fiona fancied sometimes that Nuala somehow was not hers, nor even Tadhg's, but that somehow she'd given birth to a child who was wholly Jamie's.

Jamie was a dark one and would have been more at home on the sea than on the land for that alone, but that time alone as a child, with none but the seals for company, had formed him into a man who was _so_ out of place on the land that he suffered an illness of spirit for it. It was good that Nuala, at least, understood him. She understood Jamie in ways that even Tadhg didn't. When Jamie disappeared before a storm, Nuala could always find him. When Jamie crept down to the water in the dark of the night, Nuala always knew. So, Jamie talked to her. And when Jamie talked to her, she talked to Fiona, asked her questions for which Fiona had no answers. One day, when Nuala was ten, she asked a question that left Fiona cold.

"Mama… do you think when Uncle Jamie finds his skin he'll leave us?"

Fiona froze, her hands still buried in the dough she'd been kneading. Though her heart rebelled against even the thought of letting Jamie go, at the same time, it squeezed tight in sadness… not for herself, but for Jamie. Finding a smile for Nuala, though it wilted around the edges, Fiona said softly, "I don't know, my child. And I pray we never have to find out."

* * *

Jamie was at the water, again. Fiona could see him from the cottage. Sometimes Jamie would run from her, when the sea rode him like this. Sometimes he would let her approach, let her coax him inside where it was warm… human. And, as always, whenever he had to make that choice, Fiona wondered which side of his heritage it cost him more to deny.

This time, when Fiona stepped up beside him and slipped her arm around his waist, Jamie did not wrap his around her in return. He stood there, cold and silent, staring out at the waves, a terrible longing in his dark eyes that no amount of human companionship would ease. Fiona said, "Will you talk to me, Jamie? Will you tell me what troubles you?"

Jamie sighed, finally lifted his arm to settle it over Fiona's shoulders. When he spoke, his lilting voice was hoarse, as though he'd not used it for days, not even to talk to Nuala. "If speaking would ease it, I'd have spoken of it long ago, Fiona."

"But how do you know? If you've never tried, how do you know it wouldn't help?" Fiona asked.

Another sigh. "The same way I know the currents in the sea, the moods of the wind. I just know." Jamie fell silent then, staring out at the sea as though daring it to contradict his words.

Fiona swallowed hard, finally said, "Nuala asked me a question the other day, and she took me by such surprise that I had no answer to give her. I didn't even know where to begin. But now, I think I know." Fiona took a deep breath, felt Jamie take one along with her, as though readying for a dive. She said, "Jamie… are you one of them? One of the selkies? Do you… do you feel you belong out there with them more than you do here with us?"

Jamie laughed then, and it was a dark laugh. Fiona shivered with it, shivered even more when he spoke. And he gave her then more words than he'd ever spoken to her at once. "Fiona… my sister, Fiona. Of course, I belong out there with them. That's where I've always belonged. That's why they took me as a child." He paused, turned to look down at her, and the look on his face was so full of sadness that Fiona could have wept. "But as much as I might wish it otherwise, I was born in this skin. I have no other to claim. I may be blood of the Selkie's blood… but this body belongs to the land. It always has."

Fiona tightened her grip on Jamie's waist, said fiercely, "But you're unhappy! Surely… surely there is something I can do to change that."

Bending down, Jamie pressed a soft kiss into the crown of Fiona's hair. "Sister mine… you already have." He turned then, looked up the hill to the cottage. Fiona turned with him, saw Nuala making her way down, a basket of seashells in her hands. Jamie said, "You cannot stop me from missing the sea, Fiona. You shouldn't even try. But you've given me a child, soul of my soul and kin of my kin, who understands what it is to miss something you've never even had. And… it helps to ease the loneliness." Jamie smiled, at last, and though that smile was mixed with sadness, it was a more human expression than any Fiona had ever seen him wear. "I will never truly belong here. My heart will always belong first to the sea. But Nuala -- and you and Tadhg -- you've given me a home here. You've given me a family. And I can't be sorry for that." With those last words, he released her, began walking down the beach, towards the water.

Fiona watched him for some time after he disappeared into the waves… her Jamie. And when Nuala ran past her some time later, her laughter ringing out over the dunes to be joined by a deeper, wilder laugh -- a selkie's laugh -- Fiona finally smiled, at peace.


End file.
